CheapWineFinder Podcast
Talking about remarkable wines that pair nicely with your wallet! Because we like to keep it cheap but excellent.
CheapWineFinder Podcast
Finding Wine Gold: The $7.99 Co-Pilot Pinot Noir Mystery
Something extraordinary has landed at Trader Joe's, and wine lovers should take immediate notice. The Co-Pilot Carneros Napa Pinot Noir 2023, adorned with its charming label featuring a dog in a World War II fighter pilot helmet, sells for a shocking $7.99—a price point that simply shouldn't be possible for a single-vineyard wine from this prestigious growing region.
What makes this find so remarkable is the disconnect between its pedigree and price tag. Carneros wines typically command $30-50 or more, especially those aged in French oak barrels (which cost upwards of $1,000 each). Yet here's this delightful Pinot Noir with all these premium credentials selling for less than the cost of a fast-food meal. The explanation likely lies in the wine industry's current struggles—consumption down 10%, canceled contracts, and ongoing tariff complications—creating rare opportunities for astute bargain hunters.
In the glass, this lightweight Pinot delivers surprising quality, showing good fruit expression, proper structure, and pleasing texture. Most impressively, it demonstrates qualities prized by French Burgundy producers: balanced acidity and excellent length. While not the most complex Pinot you'll ever experience, at this price point it's nothing short of remarkable. We recently reviewed its companion Co-Pilot Chardonnay from the same vineyard, also priced at $7.99, making these twins an unbeatable value proposition. Don't hesitate when you see these bottles—grab them while you can and enjoy a taste of premium Carneros terroir without the premium price tag!
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Hey, welcome to Still Main Day CheapWineFightercom with another value price wine review. This time it's a $7.99 wine from Trader Joe's. There's two wines, they're kind of related. This one is the Co-Pilot Caneros Napa Pinot Noir 2023. It's $7.99. And a few days ago we did another review of the Co co-pilot to canaros napa chardonnay 2023. That again was 7.99.
Speaker 1:And one of the odd things because the price is odd, 7.99 is not where single vineyard Canaros Napa Valley side wines are usually priced, unless it's Aldi, trader Joe's or maybe Costco. These wines are typically $30, $50, sometimes more, occasionally a little bit less, but not often. Another strange thing about this one because Trader Joe's Fearless Flyers says it's from a single vineyard well-respected single vineyard, if I'm going to be precise is that it was aged in French oak barrels. Now, if you were going to design a 799 Pinot Noir to sell to Trader Joe's, the one thing you would not do ahead of time is decide you're going to get a single vineyard, canaros, and you're going to use French oak barrels. Canaros is a high-end Pinot Noir and Chardonnay growing region. Its southern border is the San Pablo Bay, which is the bay on the eastern side of Oakland which brings cool weather, so it has all the good growing regions and French oak barrels and I don't know if they're new, used or whatever are over $1,000 a piece and you don't get that many French oak barrels or bottles out of a French oak barrel. So you don't.
Speaker 1:And they said barrel, they actually specified barrel, because there are other ways to get oak influence into a wine. There's other ways you can do it, but here it's single vineyards a French oak barrel which doesn't add up to $7.99. Oak barrel which doesn't add up to $7.99. I mean, the wine industry is having all sorts of problems. Wine, you know. The tariffs just made things worse. But in California there's not tariffs on those wines, though there are tariffs on the glass bottles coming in from China and there'll be tariffs on the corks coming in from Spain or Portugal. But that's down the road a bit. Wine is down like 10% and contracts with vineyards have been cancelled. People have gotten rid of the wine brands that haven't been performing. So what's going on with this wine? The person who put it together bottled by him that type of thing is a family-owned winery out of Napa who has done wines for Trader Joe's Costco. They do good work, but did they do this from the start to finish. Maybe not, and if you want to know who that is, it's in the Chardonnay review, not the Pinot Noir review.
Speaker 1:And let me take a sip of this one. We'll talk about it. It's a subtle nice. It's got good fruit, it's got good structure, good textures. It's a lighter weight Pinot Noir For $7.99, it's crazy good. If it was 20 bucks you might think maybe I don't know. But at $7.99, it's like this, it was 20 bucks. You might think maybe I don't know. But a 799 it's like this is a pretty good wine because you're not going to get too many other 799 Pinot Noirs that are in this quality. Is it my favorite? No, uh, but you gotta. You gotta account for the price.
Speaker 1:I thought maybe the Chardonnay was better at. It was more full-bodied, more full flavored. Not that you want Pinot Noir to be full-bodied and full flavored, but let me take another sip. But it does sip nicely. I mean, yeah, it's got really good length too.
Speaker 1:If you ever go to a French burgundy tasting, if you tell the winemaker you want the winemaker to get all happy tell them that the wine's got good length and balanced acidity, because that's what they're looking for when they make their wine, and that's what the 799 Pinot Noir from Carnero Snap Aside has. It's got balance, it's got acidity and it's got acidity and it's got length. What else can you ask for? I mean, almost there's one. It's these kind of wines that I kind of like, don't really want to criticize, because the fact that it's a brand new wine, a new vintage, and it's selling for $7.99 is somewhat crazy. So if you're in Trader Joe's and you see these Cold Placid Carneros Napa both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir I would pick them up. Oh and, by the way, the Cold Pilot is a dog with a World War II fighter pilot helmet on, so it's kind of cute. You know it's a very good dog as your Cold Pilot. So there you go.
Speaker 1:This is Domain Dave. Cheap wine findercom. This is a wine you need to pick up. I mean, if you're there and you want a decent sipping wine this summer, you can't beat a canaros single beater pinot noir for eight bucks. So there you go. Adios, keep it cheap. We got more wines coming up, as always as the weather heats up. So, adios, keep it cheap and I'll be talking to you, bye-bye.